


Like a porcelain doll.

by hanaemi



Category: Versailles (TV 2015)
Genre: Gen, Missing Moments, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2016-04-01
Packaged: 2018-05-30 14:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6426931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanaemi/pseuds/hanaemi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing moments - between 1x08 and 1x09</p>
<p>After Henriette's miscarriage, Philippe makes Marie-Louise come back to watch over her mother...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a porcelain doll.

**_Like a porcelain doll._ **

 

__****{ Fandom: Versailles**  
**Characters: Henriette, Marie-Louise d'Orléans**  
**Pairing: // **}******  
  
  
Versailles, 1668.  
  
Henriette was sitting next to the large window of her room, focused on observing the landscape beyond the glass. It was May, days finally had that intimate and pleasant spring warmth, and the rays of sunshine had decided to come back and light up Versailles after two long weeks of never ending rain. However the girl was lost in her own thoughts, and she was mostly staring at an undefined point outside. Last two months had been difficult for her, first because of her pregnancy and then because of the miscarriage, and she was still thinking of that baby who hadn’t come into the world but she had already accepted in her life. That wound was still open and she wasn’t ready to heal it, too soon to think of doing it.  
She sighed, for a few moments moving her eyes to the still untouched breakfast her servant brought her around one hour before, leaving it on a table nearby. After the loss of her baby other losses had followed: of weight, of hunger, of interest in doing anything that envisaged going outside her room, even only to catch some fresh air.  
On one hand the king had tried to encourage her and to distract her from her pain, by inviting her as his guest to the several balls he arranged in the palace. Conversely, her husband was perhaps more conscious than the king of what she was going through, in fact he had accepted her desire of leaving her in peace and he had only decided to make their eldest daughter Marie-Louise come back, so that she could watch over her mother and help her to recover.  
  
**“M-Maman?”** Henriette shyly heard someone say it behind her back. The young girl immediately turned around: it was indeed Marie-Louise who asked her mother for permission to enter, her little hands on the doorknob and a half of her head into the room.  
  
**“Come, chérie.”** The child instantly sneaked in, closing the door behind her back, and she ran into the woman’s arms to give her a warm hug.  
  
Ah, Marie-Louise. A slightly strained smile appeared on Henriette’s face, while she started caressing her daughter’s long dark hair combed in two simple braids. At the very moment of the birth, when she had found out it was a girl, in a burst of rage the woman said she would have thrown the baby into the Seine, probably because she was angrier with herself rather than with her own daughter. Actually she immediately regretted what she said, and she also cursed herself in her mind since she saw the horror in Queen Anne’s eyes, her mother-in-law.  
  
The child raised her gaze to look at her, her eyes wondering in a curious way on her mother’s face, then she reached out a hand to stroke Henriette’s cheek.  
  
**“Maman, dad says I should not come to visit you so often because you’re tired and you need to rest… but then why did he make me come back from the convent?”**  
  
The princess of Orléans’s frankness relieved Henriette, who was amused by the fact that Marie-Louise liked talking straight, with no ifs or buts, even though she was the daughter of the high aristocracy, and Henriette somehow saw the passionate attitude of both Philippe and Louis in her way of being. She held her little hands in one of hers, while she gave her a caress on her head with the other one.  
  
**“Don’t you like being here with me?”  
“Non, non, on the contrary mum, but… I don’t understand. First dad says: “You must be with your mother”, then I mustn’t…I’m just confused, that’s all.”** she explained in a whisper, lowering her gaze in order to look at the floor.  
Poor little thing. Seeing her like that tore Henriette’s heart apart: that child  had been left with no explanations to look after her mother, “but do not take care of her too much, you don’t have to tire her”, so the woman tried to think of something to explain her why she was there.  
  
**“Do you wanna know why you came back?”**  
  
The little girl nodded and sharpened her hearing, completely focused on what her mother would have told her.  
  
**“Well…let’s say mum tells you that, as soon as it is ready, you’re going to receive a wonderful doll. Okay? Right. However, due to a hitch you’ll no longer be able to receive this doll. They may make you a similar one, of course, but it will never be the same doll as the one you should have received, if it had been possible. How would you feel?”**  
  
Marie-Louise placed a little finger on her lips and frowned, thoughtful.  
  
**“But won’t I never ever receive it?”  
“Never ever.”  
“Not even if I ask the doll maker to try and make it again?”  
“It will be different in any case, that doll is already lost.”  
“Um.”**  
  
She remained silent for a while, then she joined her hands on her lap and raised her head towards Henriette.  
  
**“I believe I would feel unhappy.”  
“Well, that’s exactly what happened to mum. She should have received a doll, a magnificent one. It has been years since she last received one, but unfortunately they broke the doll before they even completed it. And this has caused her great pain.”**  
  
After those words she had an umpteenth lump in her throat, which also made her eyes glisten. The sight of her mother in such a state grew the little girl sad, and she got immediately on the woman’s knee to stay closer to her .  
**“Oh, maman…”** she just said, trying to cheer her up with a hug and placing her chin on her shoulder.  
**“Everything’s gonna be alright, c’mon, do not despair…  I’m gonna give you a doll myself, and it will be the most beautiful doll of all France!”** she confided to her ear, before getting her feet back on the floor and clapping her little hands.  
  
**“It will be sooo gorgeous, you’ll see…It will have exactly the same hair as yours, and then, and then… I’m going to look for dad, oui!”**  
  
And without even giving her time to say something Marie-Louise had slipped away at once, just some faint footstep you could still hear in the distance.  
 


End file.
